


Sleepsong

by Ribbonlette



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Delusions, Implied Shizuo/Izaya, Nightmares, Pre-Deathmatch Ketsu, Reality Bending, it's not really all that obvious tho i suppose, maybe???? not sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7314997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ribbonlette/pseuds/Ribbonlette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izaya isn't sleeping so well lately, and with his dreams, memories, and nightmares blending with reality, it's getting hard to focus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleepsong

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by the song Sleepsong by Bastille, which I definitely recommend listening to~

_“Don't talk to strangers”_

That’s what my mother said. She reminded me again and again to keep myself apart, to hold myself higher. Never lower myself low enough that I would succumb to the harmful connections that strangers will take advantage of.

Don’t talk to strangers because if you do, they will hurt you beyond repair.

Of course I never listened.

\----

The streets are filled with strangers and everywhere I turn I see a threat. Moving around me like a living being, swallowing me up and letting me blend into nothing. I love them. Every last stranger in this crowd, I love with all my being.

Strangers are my friends, my lovers. Talking to strangers is a pastime that keeps me well occupied and it’s not hard to find people to talk to.

And yet I feel so separated from the people surrounding me, trapped in a bubble as the crowds part. No one comes close and yet no one acknowledges my existence. It’s as if I don’t exist at all.

I wander through the streets, so familiar and comforting, even in places where one would expect danger. Then again, I’m one of the most dangerous people in Ikebukuro; what would I have to fear of common street thugs? None of them know how to actually fight anyway. I can take them out easily.

I slip past a building roped off with police tape. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, and I wonder what could have happened. The yellow tape is a bright warning: **DO NOT CROSS. DANGER.**

I smile and continue on. With the destruction in this city, one bit of tape is hardly going to keep people safe.

There’s someone walking next to me. It takes a while for me to notice them, and even when I do, I can't quite determine who it is. When I look at them, their features seem to blur and slide, shifting out of focus with the elusiveness of a thought. This person, this presence, it feels familiar. It must be someone I know well, but I don’t know who would walk next to me like this. The crowds are still parting around me, yet this person stays right next to me, comforting in their familiarity and yet I can feel myself on edge. There is a strange warmth coming from this person that draws me in and yet I am terrified to get closer.

This person is a threat and yet I want to turn to them and keep them close.

Is a closeness to someone too much to ask?

Yes. Yes it is. My mother reminding me not to walk into the danger of someone’s open arms flashes through my mind. No one is truly as welcoming as they appear. All people are out to get something, take something from you. No one is so kind that they would truly accept me. 

No, certainly no one could accept me.

I glance down at the road in front of me and see a hole where my being should be. The sun is at my back now and I’m chasing my shadow through these streets. That empty spot on the ground is a reminder of all the things I don’t say, the emotions I ignore for lack of understanding. I run faster, trying to catch up with it, hoping to somehow fill that hole and perhaps lose this dangerous presence walking next to me but as always my shadow is faster. 

Soon enough I’m alone with nothing but the shadow to occupy me. Even the crowds have seemed to disappear, yet I can still feel them, pressing around me and smothering me in their weight. The crowds are together, a group of light that I cannot be a part of.

And just like that I’m falling, tripping and tumbling down into shadow, falling into this hole that I’ve dug for myself.

I wake up with a gasp and find myself just as alone as when I fell asleep. The leather couch is still cold and my thoughts are still racing far faster than I would like. I feel no more rested than before. In fact, I almost wish I could fall back asleep, find that strangely warm presence that walked beside me. It is more than I can ask for, yet I want it anyway.

\----

_“Izaya-!”_

The unimaginable rage in Shizuo’s voice sends a jolt of adrenaline through me and shivers up my spine. It has me running faster, breath coming in short gasps as I round a corner and sprint away from him. My legs are burning, my chest on fire, and I’ve been at this for altogether too long. It feels as if I’ve been running for days, but in fact it has only been a few hours, though that is in itself longer than most people could keep this pace.

Certainly one of the few good things of having such a monster for my enemy is the forced increase in my stamina.

Street signs and trash cans are raining down behind me, always just slightly too far behind and I can feel laughter bubbling up in my throat. I glance behind me to see the black and white clad monster chasing after me, rage written all over his features. This feels so familiar, an easy dance that we have practiced hundreds of times and by now it’s almost comforting. Almost.

There is a crash at my heels and a violent lurch as the ground cracks beneath me. I teeter for a moment, on the verge of losing my footing and toppling over, tumbling right into the arms of the monster chasing me. An alarm goes off in my head, screaming **DANGER** loudly, - a flash of yellow seems to spring before my eyes - and then I’ve stopped slipping, my feet are on solid ground and I’m springing from my precarious spot to somewhere safer and unbroken.

Once I feel more steady, I spare a glance at the beast raging behind me. I see a flash of gold and blue as he sprints after me and I can’t keep the smile on my face from widening in manic glee at his determined expression. It is odd though. I could have sworn Shizuo was wearing his ridiculous bartender outfit, not his… Raijin uniform?

I don’t have time to dwell on this change in my perception however as the next projectile goes hurdling past my head to crash into the building in front of me. The brick shatters like glass, fracturing and flying everywhere in the oddest pattern I have ever seen but I’ve grown accustomed to the absurd happening around me and hardly have the time to contemplate it. The chase is still on and I need to find a new path.

There are only so many ways to go in the back alleys of Ikebukuro and naturally I pick the most dangerous. How else am I to lose the monster at my heels? To add to the already dilapidated backways, there is destruction in my wake. Everywhere I go, my monster follows after, projectiles flying in front of me only to make my going harder. The world seems to crumble around me as Shizuo’s swirling fury crashes through.

The black of my jacket and the blurry blue behind me that is Shizuo’s uniform are such a beautiful contrast, if I think about it. Shizuo’s uniform is bright like the sky at midday, while mine is dark, a beautiful shade of midnight. The fur of my coat seems to have disappeared, my shirt begun to bleed red from a wound I surely don’t have and I didn’t think it had gotten so late but the glint of the sunset on the windows of the city is beautiful and near blinding. A pinkish tint surrounds the cracks of the world, bouncing off the blue - white? - of Shizuo’s clothes, and as I turn a corner I have a sudden moment of clarity, a realization that something is just slightly off, that I’m not in high school anymore and the evening shouldn’t come on this quickly and the edges of the world are cracked and blurry beyond what could possibly be normal.

In the next moment there is the screech of tires and a thud and my moment of clarity is lost. I turn around to see a blue Raijin uniform lying on the ground, wrapped around a blond monster and partially under a truck. The smirk that stretches across my face feels like it could cut through the crumpled steel constantly being thrown at me and just like that the world cracks again. I’m paying off the driver and there’s fur on my sleeve - is Shizuo wearing blue or monochrome? - and maybe I should run before the buildings around me come crashing down as they seem to be.

The destruction we’ve caused is wrapped in the warning of yellow police tape - **DANGER DO NOT CROSS** \- and all I can do is laugh.

I’m terrified and confused and all I can do is laugh.

\----

They say that laughter is medicine for the soul. That even if you’re sad, if you smile it will release some kind of hormone in your brain that will cheer you up. I wonder if that’s true even for smiles like knives and laughter like broken glass. I don’t think it is. I may not be dumb enough to just not believe in science, but I’m certainly sceptical of this particular assertion. If it were true, surely I would feel so much better than this. So much better than manic laughter and exhausted chases and paranoid nights curled up on my couch. Days are blending together and the world is a kaleidoscope of chaos and I’ve never been more exhausted.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between reality, a dream, and a nightmare.

When the hands of your enemy and the hands of your allies are equally as rough, it can be difficult to distinguish between the two after all. And when the voice of a friend grates on your ears and leads you to both pain and guilt, it is difficult to know which is better. Perhaps the nightmare where I am alone would in fact be the best.

After all, this is surely reality. How could it be anything but? With the buzzing of Shinra constantly in my ear, ranting on and on about something I care nothing for… Yes, this is my reality. Why I continue to associate with this man is beyond me, however it seems to have become a habit I don’t have the energy to break.

“---!”

So I sip tea and tune out Shinra’s irritating gushing over Celty and the last job he had and Celty and the beauty of the human form spread out on an exam table and Celty and Celty and “My Beautiful Darling Celty!”

He really does go on.

“---”

I wonder if his droning will ever end? Will there be a break in it in which I can cut in? Will he give me time to answer? I suppose I would know better if I actually listened to a word he said but honestly, I find that rather difficult. Every word he says is just so boring and pointless. How any human could be so uninteresting at any point in time baffles me.

“But what if...it does not decompose?”

Ahh, but there have been other humans more boring I suppose. Such as those ridiculous ones who go on suicide sites without wanting to die. Honestly, how boring can you be? Unless they’re some kind of troll anyway. Or all those girls who “fell madly in love” with me in high school without knowing a thing about me. Sure, they were fun to lead on, but could they be more boring? To fall in love with someone you know nothing about is an impossibility. Although, I suppose Shinra would disagree with me. So would Namie’s little brother, with his twisted love for that head.

Humans really are so strange.

“I’m not talking about adipocere formation or anything. If the corpse actually never decomposes, could it become capable of communicating with humans?”

I take another sip of my tea, glancing around the room. I don’t remember Shinra having so many plants in his apartment. He must of gotten them for Celty or something, wanting to make the house seem less bare. I liked it better before. I’m not all that fond of Venus Fly-traps. They’re too nostalgic and I don’t like it.

They do seem to like the late afternoon light though. If I recall correctly, the hints of red on them tend to become more clear when the sun hits them just right…

“If falling in love with humans is normal and falling in love with anything else is not, where should one draw the line?”

My vision blurs as I stare at the plants, the whole world shifting out of focus. I’m bored and it’s hot, the summer sun beating at my back, and I wonder how Shinra can still be wearing long sleeves in this heat. Even now he is wearing a sweater under his jacket, and as I watch the red spots on the plants seem to impose themselves on my eyes, blinking into existence on Shinra’s shirt instead.

“If the line should be drawn between falling in love with something living and something dead...”

He’s still ranting on and I swear, I’ve heard this speech before. Shinra does like to talk about love and death as if they are as mundane topics as the weather. His love for Celty is so all-consuming of his self that he can hardly talk about it any other way, and surely living with a goddess of death has odd effects on how one views dying. 

It’s not surprising then, that he remains so calm in the face of it.

“...would you say it is abnormal to fall in love with something neither living nor dead, at the same time not human and almost human…?”

The red splotches on my vision have begun to spread. The bottom of Shinra’s shirt is soaked in the red, flecks of it splattered on his face. His hand disappears into his jacket, pressed to his side as if to stop the spread.

“Izaya? Are you listening to me?”

I feel lightheaded. There is cold steel in my hand and something wet, something awful and sticky. There is bile in my throat and red dripping onto the floor from the tip of something sharp. Something sharp and far too familiar by now. 

“That’s what I was trying to say. Where is the point at which normality ends and abnormality begins?”

I don’t know the answer to that question. The whole room seems to be spinning around me, flashing between late afternoon and early morning, the red splotches on my eyes - the blood on Shinra’s sweater - spinning around with it and I no longer know where I am. I could have sworn I was at Shinra’s apartment but there are classroom desks in here now and Shinra has never kept plants like this and the couch is hard beneath me. There is frantic yelling in one ear, contrasted by the calm of Shinra’s voice in the other and I don’t know which is actually in the room with me and which is in my memories.

“The answer depends on each individual person, I suppose.”

I can’t stay here. The world is twisting and I’m unsteady on my feet, terrified of something that I can’t pin down. There is guilt crushing me, turning my voice into a fractured mess as I stand, croaking out some excuse to Shinra when he looks at me quizzically. He’s still covered in red, his hand pressed to his side, yet he seems as calm as ever, maybe even concerned about me. I can’t stand seeing him, I can’t take anymore of this, and before I’ve fully comprehended what I’m doing I’m rushing for the door. Shinra is calling at me from behind but it has the echo of a different voice, a voice much weaker than it is now and strained in pain and I can’t face that again.

So instead, I run.

\----

I run. Away from Shinra, away from the plants, away from the red. I run past a truck and a flash of blue and I run away from that too. Run from the monster I’ve done everything I can to stop in it’s tracks.

Run from the demons that are chasing me in my own mind.

_**Don't talk to strangers-** _

I can’t call out for help. I can’t let anyone else know that I’ve become this weak. I must keep up my masks - my armor - my protection - at absolutely all costs. This is what I have done my whole life: fend off the world to avoid hurting myself. As long as I keep my true voice from being heard by all the strangers around me, I’ll be fine. If they heard me after all, they could surely hurt me. Surely, surely, all these people surrounding me in this sea of voices are going to hurt me.

_**And don't walk into danger-** _

Yet it seems wherever I turn, there is something to hurt me. In every direction I try to walk, there is a sign screaming at me: 

DANGER

Yellow police tape wraps around every street sign and blocks off every corner. 

DO NOT CROSS

It surrounds me and it is all I can do to avoid it. Soon enough however I am surrounded and suddenly I’m more terrified than before. I don’t know what to do or how to handle this danger. It is following me, tracking me down, and at first it was almost comforting in its permanence but now it is closing in on me and just like that I’m trying to scream.

DANGER DANGER 

_**Don't talk to strangers-** _

Nothing comes out. I clutch at my throat, my eyes wide. I’m trying to speak, to make any kind of sound, but nothing is coming out. I’m gasping for air, finding that easy enough. But when I try to form words, they only make it to the back of my throat before dying, twisting in my throat and choking me. I’m stumbling through the crowds, trying to find someone who can talk to me, but everytime I open my mouth nothing comes out. 

Nothing comes out and all I can see is yellow.

_**And don't walk into danger-** _

The more I try to speak, the more yellow there seems to be.

DO NOT CROSS DO NOT CROSS

It is surrounding me, chasing me. I’m running into it, getting caught in this spider web, and when I look down at my hands, they are wrapped in it.

DANGER DANGER DANGER

The police tape has come alive, uncoiling from the street signs and posts, wrapping around my limbs, my eyes, my throat. I try to push it off but it’s never ending. I’m trapped, tangled in a web I made for myself, unable to call out for help, unable to reach any of the people near me no matter what I try to say.

DANGER DO NOT CROSS DANGER

And suddenly I’m being pulled back and down. My legs give out and I’m falling, tumbling down a dark abyss. The cold envelops me and then everything hurts, painful beyond belief and it seems this fall will never end.

**DANGER DO NOT CROSS DANGER DO NOT CROSS**

But then it does. It ends and I’m strapped to a chair, unable to move and bearing a pain beyond anything I’ve ever felt. The danger is wrapped around me, keeping me warm but also confining me to this chair and I don’t know if the pain is in my body or in my mind, but it is all consuming.

I still can’t scream.

**_DANGER_ **

\----

It has been months since I’ve slept peacefully. Months since I have had more than 2 consecutive hours of sleep. Months since the bags under my eyes were small enough to easily be covered by a bit of makeup and a manic smile.

Months of nightmares plaguing me every moment I shut my eyes.

What’s worse is how they have invaded my waking hours as well. More and more the dreams seem to spill over, distort the world around me until I can’t tell which is the dream and which is the nightmare. Old ghosts haunt me, current demons chase me. How does one deal with a fear of the impossible, the fear of the inevitable? The fear of what is standing right in front of me, staring me in the face. I’ve been chasing it all these years but now it seems to have turned around and started chasing me and I’ve found I’m not so fond of being the hunted. It’s more than I can handle.

I’ve spent months living a sleepless, waking nightmare and I’m ready for it to end. I’m ready to face the monster that is the embodiment of my fear, the strangers that I must avoid, and kill it, no matter the cost.

After all, even if I die bringing it down, at least then I’ll be able to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> sup guys!! so i'm finally done classes for the year and that means i managed to finish this thing that i've been sitting on for months. hope you all enjoy it!!


End file.
